Barbie and body image

This is a fantastic site which shows how barbies are creating an anorexic image and how its inflencing children in a wrong way.

" BARBIE, THAT plastic icon of all things pink, blond and clueless, has appointed herself guardian of girls' ambitions.

Mattel's new ad campaign for the much-maligned doll is trading in her anorexic image for neofeminist slogans and heartwarming rhetoric. What's a feminist to make of it?

The black-and-white series—which appeared earlier this year on phone booths and billboards in New York City—features portraits of rough, tough girls with hockey sticks and wind-whipped hair. Slogans like "Girls rule" and "Be anything" are clearly gleaned from the feminist-inspired girls' movement. A small pink logo in the corner reads, unobtrusively, "Barbie." "

"But it's too late for Mattel to change Barbie's status as an insta-symbol of everything that's wrong with our culture's well-worn images of femininity and beauty. Unless, of course, they deliver a fleet of Barbies with cellulite fat asses, nappy hair, big noses, and voiceboxes that discuss the inherent flaws of dolls as role models at the pull of a string.

Ads telling girls they can "be anything" or "become your own hero" are only wrapping the Mattel message —buy our products now! —in a vaguely girl-positive package.

And getting self-esteem from a company that brought us aerobics instructor Barbie is about as easy as squeezing the Share-a-Smile Becky doll's wheelchair through the too-small doorway of the Dreamhouse."